Clinton Campaign Wrote About “Elevating” Trump Months Before He Declared Candidacyby Claire Bernish October 8, 2016

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Wikileaks released a bombshell document on Saturday showing strategies to align the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign by promoting — not criticizing — the field of Republican opponents, particularly highlighting Donald Trump.

Clinton campaign wrote about their strategic goal of "elevating" Trump two months before he declared his candidacy https://t.co/bVVLQoGnhz pic.twitter.com/Wv9VUxufkQ— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 8, 2016

From the memo addressed to the DNC under the heading, “Our Goals & Strategy”:

“Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to the majority of the electorate. We have outlined three strategies to obtain our goal …”

Those strategies — while including the political typicality to paint the GOP candidates in an unfavorable light — also include the proposal to “Muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC.”

But far more telling is a section entitled: Operationalizing the Strategy.

Under the subheading, “Pied Piper Candidates,” the memo explains:

“There are two ways to approach the strategies mentioned above. The first is to use the field as a whole to inflict damage on itself similar to what happened to Mitt Romney in 2012. The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream Republican Party. Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:

Ted CruzDonald TrumpBen Carson

“We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.”

In other words, the April 7, 2015 memo — written at the very beginning of Clinton’s campaign — shows coordination with the Democratic National Committee from the start. Although written with the intimation whatever Clinton would choose to use against her Republican opponents would naturally benefit any Democrats in the presidential race, further information in the document shows either her campaign’s alignment had already begun, or that it would shortly.

Written under “Muddying the Waters,” the author explains the GOP has been “building its opposition research on Hillary Clinton for decades […] One way we can respond to these attacks is to show how they boomerang onto the Republican presidential field. The goal then is to have a dossier on the GOP candidates on the likely attacks HRC will face.”

What the memo’s author is describing overall constitutes a smear campaign through bait-and-switch — work to prop up the opposition by acknowledging its legitimacy while undermining the validity of the entire Republican Party by fixating on any fringe statements from those now-legitimate candidates.

In fact, the document also suggests even unproven information wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility in the effort to vilify Republican opponents. After discussing the coming GOP attacks on Hillary Clinton’s credibility, the document states:

“In this regard, any information on scandals or ethical lapses on the GOP candidates would serve well. We won’t be picky.”

Wikileaks, after coming under fire at the beginning of the month for what many saw as a failure to deliver on its “October Surprise,” has certainly now made good on its promise with leaks of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s emails.

Transcripts from Clinton’s paid speeches have surfaced proving — as her campaign proved — the candidate has a lack of understanding for the middle and working class, saying she is “far removed” because of the “fortunes” she and her husband “enjoy.”

Media collusion with the Clinton campaign has also now been cemented, with a Clinton Foundation insider describing with delight a forthcoming article for the New York Times,

“Agree. I like it, especially the ‘twisting previously known facts into absurd conspiracy theories’. I suspect we might be able to get repeat use of out of that one.”

Wikileaks release of the Podesta emails will most certainly reveal more in the days to come.

This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field. Clearly most of what is contained in this memo is work the DNC is already doing. This exercise is intended to put those ideas to paper.

Our Goals & Strategy

Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate. We have outlined three strategies to obtain our goal:

1) Force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election;

2) Undermine any credibility/trust Republican presidential candidates have to make inroads to our coalition or independents;

3) Muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC.Operationalizing the Strategy

Pied Piper Candidates

There are two ways to approach the strategies mentioned above. The first is to use the field as a whole to inflict damage on itself similar to what happened to Mitt Romney in 2012. The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more “Pied Piper” candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party. Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:

• Ted Cruz

• Donald Trump

• Ben Carson

We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously.

Undermining Their Message & Credibility

Most of the more-established candidates will want to focus on building a winning general election coalition. The “Pied Pipers” of the field will mitigate this to a degree, but more will need to be done on certain candidates to undermine their credibility among our coalition (communities of color, millennials, women) and independent voters. In this regard, the goal here would be to show that they are just the same as every other GOP candidate: extremely conservative on these issues. Some examples:

• Jeb Bush

o What to undermine: the notion he is a “moderate” or concerned about regular Americans; perceived inroads with the Latino population.

• Marco Rubio

o What to undermine: the idea he has “fresh” ideas; his perceived appeal to Latinos

• Scott Walker

o What to undermine: the idea he can rally working- and middle class Americans.

• Rand Paul

o What to undermine: the idea he is a “different” kind of Republican; his stance on the military and his appeal to millennials and communities of color.

• Bobby Jindal

o What to undermine: his “new” ideas

• Chris Christie

o What to undermine: he tells it like it is.

Muddying the Waters

As we all know, the right wing attack machine has been building its opposition research on Hillary Clinton for decades. The RNC et al has been telegraphing they are ready to attack and do so with reckless abandon. One way we can respond to these attacks is to show how they boomerang onto the Republican presidential field. The goal, then, is to have a dossier on the GOP candidates on the likely attacks HRC will face. Based on attacks that have already occurred, the areas they are highlighting:

• Transparency & disclosure

• Donors & associations

• Management & business dealings

In this regard, any information on scandals or ethical lapses on the GOP candidates would serve well. We won’t be picky.

Again, we think our goals mirror those of the DNC. We look forward to continuing the conversation.

SPLC's Intelligence Report: Amid Year of Lethal Violence, Extremist Groups Expanded Ranks in 2015 last group of people to demonize,” he said. “Trans people — particularly trans people of color — are the most victimized group of all.”by Southern Poverty Law CenterFebruary 17, 2016

The number of extremist groups operating in the United States grew in 2015 – a year awash in deadly extremist violence and hateful rhetoric from mainstream political figures, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual census of hate groups and other extremist organizations.

The report, contained in the Spring 2016 issue of the SPLC’s investigative journal, Intelligence Report, can be read here

The SPLC found that the number of hate groups operating in 2015 was 14 percent higher than in 2014. Antigovernment “Patriot” groups – armed militias and others animated by conspiracy theories – also grew 14 percent during the same period.

“While the number of extremist groups grew in 2015 after several years of declines, the real story was the deadly violence committed by extremists in city after city,” said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the SPLC and editor of the Intelligence Report. “Whether it was Charleston, San Bernardino or Colorado Springs, 2015 was clearly a year of deadly action for extremists.”

This growth came amid a series of lethal terrorist attacks by extremists. In June, a white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. In December, Islamist radicals killed 14 people at a work party in San Bernardino, California – just days after an anti-abortion extremist killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. These were just the worst of numerous other attacks and foiled extremist plots reviewed in this issue.

“After seeing the bloodshed that defined 2015, our politicians should have worked to defuse this anger and bring us together as a nation,” Potok said. “Unfortunately, the carnage did little to dissuade some political figures from spouting incendiary rhetoric about minorities. In fact, they frequently exploited the anger and polarization across the country for political gain.”

Here are the main articles in the issue:

• The Year in Hate and Extremism — by Mark Potok — The number of hate and antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups grew last year, and terrorist attacks and radical plots proliferated.• A Year of Living Dangerously — by Mark Potok — The political violence we saw in 2015 was worse than it seemed. • Backlash — by Leah Nelson — Anti-Muslim hatred ratcheted up sharply after the Islamic State attacks in Paris. Then came San Bernardino and Donald Trump.• Seeing Red — by Ryan Lenz — After years of avoiding conspiracy theories, anti-Indian activists now see a global communist plot behind a UN plan.• Aryan Deflations — by Bill Morlin — A dozen years after the death of its founder, the remnants of the once-infamous Aryan Nations have just about disappeared• Culture Jamming — by Keegan Hankes — Racist leaders are increasingly sending out disinformation to spread their ideology online. • Fear and Loathing in Montana — by Ryan Lenz — On a decaying former Air Force base, antigovernment ‘sovereign citizens’ are battling the few remaining locals for control.• Life After Hate — by Ryan Lenz, illustrations by Brett Affrunti — Staffed by former racists, an ‘exit’ program aimed at disillusioned white supremacist radicals in the U.S. is picking up steam.

The demonization of Muslims, Latinos, immigrants and others became commonplace in 2015. Presidential candidate Donald Trump made headlines with a call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and his description of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. He even cited a bogus “poll” by the Center for Security Policy that falsely claimed that a quarter of American Muslims support violent jihadists such as the members of the Islamic State.

The Center for Security Policy is one of two anti-Muslim groups listed as hate groups for the first time in this year’s report. The other is ACT! for America.

Other political figures launched their own verbal attacks against a host of targets to exploit the anger and fear of some Americans over the country’s changing demographics, immigration, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists. Economic pressure on white, working-class Americans has also contributed to the anger.

“Backlash,” a related report within this issue, explores the wave of violence and hatred directed at American Muslims in the wake of shrill attacks by major presidential candidates and recent jihadist massacres in Paris and San Bernardino.

These messages by mainstream political figures were often amplified by right-wing media outlets, adding to the sense of polarization and anger across the country – an atmosphere that may be unmatched since the political upheavals of 1968. With the new year beginning with armed militiamen seizing a federal wildlife refuge near Burns, Oregon, the extremist threat in the United States appears likely to get worse before it improves.

The hate groups listed in this report include neo-Nazis, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, Klansmen and black separatists. Other hate groups on the list target LGBT people, Muslims or immigrants, and some specialize in producing racist music or propaganda denying the Holocaust.

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[JULIAN ASSANGE] Hillary Clinton has done quite well strategically to try and draw a connection between Trump and Russia, because she has so many connections of her own. Now, my analysis of Trump and Russia is that there is no substantial connection. Why do I say that? Because Trump was trying to invest in Russia before Putin in the 1990s. And after Putin. In fact, nearly all the way up to the present moment. And he’s had no success! He did not manage to build hotels and so on in Russia. So that shows how insubstantial his contacts are.

There’s an extremely well-documented pattern of when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, those people – companies, governments – who wanted a decision by the Secretary of State in their favor, making large donations to the Clinton Foundation, or in some other cases, business deals with the people around Hillary Clinton.

Now, one particular instance is the approval by Secretary Clinton of selling 20% of the U.S. uranium reprocessing rights to a Russian company to be exported to Russia. So at that time, a large donation was made by those Russian interests to the Clinton Foundation. In addition, Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, was on the board of a company named Joule Unlimited, and Joule Unlimited held some of these rights, and received a $ 35 million investment from Russia!

[AFSHIN RATTANSI] That’s a Russian government company?

[JULIAN ASANGE] And also, Russians were on the board also with Podesta.

[AFSHIN RATTANSI] So the kind of email revelations from Wikileaks reveal that Hillary Clinton is a Kremlin stooge?

[JULIAN ASANGE] I wouldn’t say “Kremlin Stooge,” but there is a much deeper connection on record with Hillary Clinton and Russia than we have with, that we are presently aware of with, Donald Trump.

[AFSHIN RATTANSI] Well, some journalists would argue that it’s actually the subject of the revelations that’s more interesting to the American voter about the election, while the media is fascinated whether the Kremlin is working with you, whether you work for the Kremlin, basically.

[JULIAN ASANGE] No, but I think it’s a genuine question you should ask the sources of information. The least, however, in case of Wikileaks publications. Why do I say that? Well, the principal reason why you want to know the source of some statement is to understand whether it’s true or not, even a big issue in the case of other media organizations who are simply making claims and not publishing original documents. I give you an example, a very, very interesting example.

I’ve done some research on the Turkish coup. Now, it’s not spoken about in the West, but within Turkey, the Turkish newspapers, are publishing elements of a theory that the United States was directly involved in the coup. The U.S. Intelligence backed Fethullah Gülen who is based in Pennsylvania as the head of the Gulen cult that has been implicated in the coup. In fact, according to the Turkish government, he is the leading actor in the coup.

[AFSHIN RATTANSI] He’s wanted by President Erdogan?

[JULIAN ASANGE] Yes, and he put out extradition requests. But one of the key independent points of evidence, not coming from interrogation in Turkey where people might have been placed under duress, is that in the middle of the coup, NBC published that Erdogan was on his way to Germany to seek asylum. And they say this was told to them by a U.S. military source. So what the hell is going on there? Because that went all the way around the world, and was used to further the chances of success of the coup within Turkey, because if the president has fled, then he’s lost control.

Sometime soon I am going to suggest that Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio create the equivalent of a People's PAC to raise huge amounts of money from small donors---after the convention---to support electing liberals at all levels....including but far beyond Hillary assuming she is nominated.....

Beyond this Hillary should stop attacking Bernie, especially when she says things that are untrue, which candidly she often does. I am one of the people with credibility to suggest Bernie people support her in November, and she and Benenson and others have no idea of the damage she does to herself with these attacks, which she does not gain by making.

Instead the smart move would be to look for issues where she can dovetail with Bernie. One I am definitely going to suggest would be to take his proposal for a free public college education paid for by a transaction tax on Wall Street speculation and add one new dimension....that to receive this benefit young people should devote one year to some form of community or public service....

There is no reason Hillary cannot not support this....

Right now I am petrified that Hillary is almost totally dependent on Republicans nominating Trump....she has huge endemic political weaknesses that she would be wise to rectify.....even a clown like Ted Cruz would be an even money bet to beat and this scares the hell of out me.....